Many of us start the day with coffee and it is something that we often don’t think twice about. One cup of regular coffee is about 80 to 100mg of caffeine, depending on your beverage of choice. Espresso is about 75 to 150mg a shot. Cold Brew is around 200mg per 16oz serving. Medical guidelines recommend no more than 400mg of caffeine per day. Of course there are individual differences to this standard, but this recommendation comes with the understanding that anxiety, difficulty sleeping, headaches, migraines, and high blood pressure are all risks of over indulgence in caffeine. Simultaneously, moderate caffeine consumption has many potential positive health benefits such as improving brain function, boosting mood, increasing metabolism, lowering risk of stroke, heart disease, and liver damage, as well as boosting beneficial gut bacteria.
Stress, busyness and commitments of all sorts (those involving work or play) have become badges of honor in our society. Rarely are people praised for carving out time for rest or putting boundaries around what they will and will not commit to.
“I like to conceptualize triggers as landmines; we didn’t put them there and neither did the immediate circumstance that put you into this triggered state,” says Harlich. “When one gets stepped on, often nobody sees it coming, nor may anyone even know what landmine was stepped on.”
[Rachel Harlich is a psychotherapist specializing in LGBTQ issues.]
As a therapist, what is more concerning to me than burnout itself is that it has been normalized. Along with realizing that a lot of the people I talk with think that burnout is “normal,” neurodivergent clients experience burnout at a more intense and frequent rate than others. My 20-something neurodivergent friend recently told me that he expects burnout in life. While burnout does not have to be a normal part of life, after researching statistics of burnout in the neurodivergent population I have a better understanding of why he expects burnout is going to happen at some point.
NAMI is the national alliance on mental illness. They are the nation’s largest grass roots mental health organization. Taylor Bennet from NAMI wrote an article about how to support and listen and potentially help a friend who expresses feelings of wanting to die. Suicide is heavy. It is not easy to think about and it is not easy to talk about, especially with those you care about. The most important thing to remember is to talk about it. Don’t avoid it, don’t graze over it, don’t try to talk about something else. Listen. Confronting those thoughts out loud with someone who cares for them impacts someone’s ability to get the help they need before reaching a crisis.
If “burnout” was not something you heard about prior to the pandemic, 2020 sealed the deal in ensuring we all knew what burnout looked and felt like. I can still remember images of nurses and doctors with deep indents on their faces from wearing masks for endless hours while trying to save those battling COVID. I also specifically remember a picture of a mom crouching in her kitchen with her head in her hands. The caption noted that she had not bathed or changed clothes in a few days because she was trying to care for all of the “littles” (babies and toddlers) in her home without adequate support during the pandemic.